Professor Deborah Denno spoke with Fox News about Alabama’s controversial proposal to become the first state to execute an inmate with nitrogen hypoxia—inhalation of pure nitrogen to fatally replace oxygen in the bloodstream—and why the state’s protocol, as it stands, is the “vaguest protocol [she’d] ever seen, ever.”
“You would want everything specified about exactly what is going to take place. His attorneys have nothing to work with,” she said Monday. “It gets very redacted when you get down to the execution itself. They mention all these cylinders, but they have no idea what they’re talking about. … How is it getting there? How is it being transported? How is it being put into cylinders? Is someone coming in and filling cylinders? This is critical information that we would need to know about any execution method.”
Denno said it is unclear whether spiritual advisers or observers watching the execution would be safe from the colorless, odorless nitrogen. The specifications of the mask that would deliver the gas were redacted or not included in the protocol document, and it is unclear if the death chamber at Holman Correctional Facility is airtight.
“You have much more detail in states that electrocute people. For example, you have details on what kind of sponge they’re using,” she said. “What’s going to be done with their hands? You don’t know that with nitrogen. How do we know the inmate can’t take the mask off?”